Posted in social media, usability on Jan 24th, 2007
Jitendra Gupta and Richard MacManus have an interested piece on Read/Write Web where they look at “throwaway identities” online. The core of the issue is how people create accounts or identities online, and then change them. Sometimes, this is intentional - such as using an email address for subscriptions, so you don’t get spam in […]
Posted in social media on Jan 23rd, 2007
Steve Rubel declares the phrases “social media,” “user generated content” and “consumer generated media.” as obsolete. While I would not bet on any less usage of these phrases in 2007, his reasoning is interesting. For creators of “consumer generated content”:
“It’s like we’re a separate entity from the rest of the so-called “mainstream” journalists, filmmakers, […]
Posted in customer experience on Jan 22nd, 2007
David Pogue of the New York Times looks at the redesign effort behind the upcoming release of Microsoft Office. I thought it was interesting how Microsoft took the rare step (for any company) to truly rethink the purpose of the program suite, and look at its usage from a users perspective, instead of a features […]
Posted in customer experience on Jan 22nd, 2007
Google is looking to reshape the book industry:
“Google and some of the world’s top publishers are working on plans that they hope could do for books what Apple’s iPod has done for music.”
The proposed system would “allow readers to download entire books to their computers in a format that they could read on screen or […]
Posted in magazines on Jan 18th, 2007
Several articles this week on how Time magazine and other publications are fairing. Comparing ad pages from 2005 to 2006:
Time Inc.: Down 4.8%
Hearst Corporation: Down 0.7%
Hachette Filipacchi: Down 7.1%
Meredith Corporation: Down 1.4%
Specifics for various titles from these companies can be found at MediaDailyNews.
The New York Times looks at Time’s situation in particular:
“Despite its journalistic […]
Posted in marketing, innovation on Jan 18th, 2007
An interesting article on developing a dialogue with influencers online.
“Influencers [are] active, engaged members of local communities. They’ve always existed—opinion makers and opinion leaders. What’s different now? Today they have a much bigger bullhorn available to them—it’s called the Web. Where they once talked to 100 people in a month, they can now reach thousands […]
Posted in newspapers, innovation, journalism, citizen journalism on Jan 18th, 2007
As newspapers renew their online focus, the tactic seems to be paying off:
“The number of people reading Internet blogs on the top 10 U.S. newspaper sites more than tripled in December from a year ago and accounted for a larger percentage of overall traffic to those sites.”
Steve Rubel sees this as a step in the […]
Posted in media, social media, customer experience on Jan 17th, 2007
Scott Karp askes, “Is News A Fundamentally Shared, Social Experience?” His theory:
“Despite all the hype about the “user in control,” purely personalized news may be too much control, a slippery slope that leads to solipsism. The proverbial “water cooler” is symbolic of our fundamental need to share the news, to validate our experiences by sharing […]
Cathleen P. Black, president of Hearst Magazines reflects on their web strategy:
“…never viewing digital inventory as the value-added piece of an ad-page deal, said Ms. Black, calling magazines’ obsession with advertisers’ page schedules “almost a relic.”
Their five goals for digital:
Transforming existing sites into the best possible properties.
Using the web to drive profitable circulation.
Leading the industry […]
Posted in journalists on Jan 16th, 2007
Mindy McAdams doesn’t think that all journalism schools are preparing their students for the realities of online. Commenting on some of the future-journalists themselves:
“They are attached to a dream of becoming someone from the past — maybe photojournalist Eddie Adams, maybe gonzo writer Hunter S. Thompson — a journalist who only took pictures or who […]
